Brian Cosgrove and Mark Hall, together with
John Hambley and a hugely
talented pool of names like Brian Trueman, Bridget
Appleby, Jackie Cockle,
Chris Randall, and Barry Purves have been producing
animated hit after hit
for more than 25 years. 'DangerMouse', 'Count Duckula',
'Noddy', 'Oakie Doke',
'Chorlton And The Wheelies', 'Wind In The Willows',
'Jamie And The Magic Torch',
'Cockleshell Bay' and more, so many more - These
boys and girls have been
responsible for a whole raft of animated brilliance...

Uniquely amongst British studios, Cosgrove Hall
has shifted adeptly between
different animated forms, from traditional cel
techniques to stop-motion modelwork
and on now, to computer generated imagery. Their
cel-based projects have
always had a rather surreal bent, with the accent
firmly on wit, eccentricity and
peculiarly British nonsense. From Cuckooland
to Transylvania to Big City, these
worlds have been populated by a mad menagerie of
Truncheon-Eating Policemen,
Vampire Duck Hunters, and Badly-Drawn Brothers. Witty
creations, sparkling
scripts and design have enabled these shows to overcome
the limitations of their
tight budgets and fling mud in the eye of the American
studios, for so long
unchallenged in their dominance of the kids tv market...

By contrast, Cosgrove Hall's stop-motion projects have
developed in a very
different direction. The accent here has been on
understatement and sophistication.
Series and films have displayed a level of intimacy and
detail which makes them
look like a million dollars. In the eighties they
steered towards the naturalistic,
achieving remarkable arresting results. From a technical
point of view 'Cinderella',
'The Pied Piper Of Hamelin' and 'The Fool Of The
World' are timeless marvels to
study frame-by-labour-intensive-frame. It's said
that the Pied Piper cast included
1,000 individual puppet rats.

In the last decade or so Cosgrove's 3D direction
has altered course slightly.
The model series have been designed with a younger
audience in mind, and a
dash of the fun-tastic has been added to the
mixture. Witness 'Noddy' and 'Oakie
Doke', two splendidly observed creations which
utilize all the skill and subtlety
of technique acquired from those earlier
films, but packaged up bright and
beautiful for a preschool audience...

Never one to stand still, the studio has now been
bitten by the CGI bug, but the
team haven't forgotten their roots and the same level
of care, attention and
craftsmanship is being employed to the new format.
'Fetch The Vet' and 'Engie
Benjy' wear the Cosgrove stamp of quality,
whilst seamlessly blending
computer-rendered elements into its traditional set-ups.
Recent revivals of
'Bill & Ben' and 'Andy Pandy' are continuing
that subtle blending of techniques,
whilst again pushing at the envelope of quality....

A
little history

Brian Cosgrove and Mark Hall go back a long
way - all the way to Manchester's
Regional College Of Art in the late 1950s. Mark graduated
in 1957 and Brian
12 months later. In the 1960s they worked as graphic
designers for Granada TV.
In 1971 Mark left to form Stop Frame Animations,
and Brian joined him a year
later. Their first production, 'The Magic Ball' was
an award-winning series
said to have been filmed in Brian's garden shed.
Other Stop Frame
productions include a splendid version of 'Noddy'
(remade by them twenty
years later, of course), and a one-off adaptation
of 'Captain Noah And His
Floating Zoo'...

Cosgrove Hall Productions eventually came together
in 1976, with exec
producer John Hambley now onboard what was in
fact a subsidiary of
broadcaster Thames TV. First came the surreal
delights of 'Chorlton And The
Wheelies', titled after the Manchester suburb
- Chorlton-Cum-Hardy - where
the fledgling studio was now based. 'Jamie And
The Magic Torch' followed
swiftly on Chorlton's heels (or wheels, even?),
and a TV-adaptation of Gerald
Durrell's 'The Talking Parcel'. Animated inserts
for 'Rainbow' continued through
from the Stop Frame days and included a mixture
of traditional animation -
'Lines And Shapes' - and stop motion - 'Grandma
Bricks of Swallow Street',
'Sally and Jake', and 'Robin And Rosie of Cockleshell
Bay'. The latter spawned
its own extraordinarily successful series, of course...
The 80s were dominated by three towering creations
- 'DangerMouse', 'Count
Duckula' and 'The Wind In The Willows'. The
mouse and the duck were bright,
sprite, and utterly ridiculous. 'Willows', meanwhile, was
steeped in a golden glow
of nostalgia. Between them, these series broke America
via Nickelodeon,
collected an armful of prestigious awards and
ingrained themselves upon the
minds of a generation. The world appeared to be Cosgrove
Hall's oyster.
But then, incredibly, in 1993 the studio hit a Big
Wall. Their parent company,
Thames TV lost its broadcast franchise. The studio's
funding looked doomed.
One casualty of the ensuing chaos was 'Truckers',
the first series in a trilogy
based on Terry Pratchett's Bromeliad books. Both planned
sequels were
swallowed up into development hell. But the company
was rejuvenated via
a brand new deal with Anglia TV and a slightly-tweaked
name, Cosgrove
Hall Films. With it came a slate of spanking-new
animation favourites for
a plethora of different companies. The leaner, sharper
Cosgrove Hall had its
eye firmly on the world market and some extremely
interesting production
partnerships. 'Noddy' and 'Oakie Doke' were both
tailored into huge hits
for BBC Worldwide, 'The Animal Shelf' for that all-conquering
Mouse House,
Disney and 'Lavender Castle', a co-production with
another British toon
god, Gerry Anderson...

The last few years have seen Cosgrove Hall building
on established successes.
A third generation of fans have discovered 'Foxbusters',
'Fetch The Vet', 'Bill
& Ben' and 'Andy Pandy', and there are new fans
for 'Albie' and 'Engie Benjy'.
Development work has continued alongside the series.
Cosgrove Hall Digital was
launched to exploit the new computer-driven
world. Their cgi-short 'Blink' has
'wow' the industry in 2002. And in development
is 'The InBreds', their first
attempt at a truly 'adult' series since the
days of their 'Captain Kremmen' inserts
for 'The Kenny Everett Video Show' in 1978.
Both Brian and Mark have now
stepped down from active duty at the studio, but
their influence is still there
alongside the array of talent who appear able to
churn out success after success
almost at will. By 'eck, they've done well, so they
'ave...

Of
mice and toads

Everyone has their own particular Cosgrove Hall
favourite, but in terms of
their cel-based successes one figure stands
head and shoulders above their
mountain of success. He's white, stares calmly in
the face of evil, and wears
an eye-patch. 'DangerMouse' was a gem, conceived
in 1976 as an extension of
Patrick McGoohan's 'Danger Man' character from
the sixties, DM developed via
a rather ponderous and ill-voiced pilot in to
a world-beating, crime-fighting
superstar. With the series launch in the eighties,
DM and his bumbling spectacled
sidekick Penfold took on board liberal dollops of
Bond pastiche and, in the
process, took the company's success 'across
the pond' to America, stopping
New York in its tracks (almost literally). When a
New York TV station cancelled
the show to broadcast a Mayoral event there
were howls of protest. The series
spawned an almost-as-successful spin-off too, in
the form of the vegetarian
'Count Duckula'. Even now, twenty years on, DangerMouse
is a 'hot property' ,
his name helping to shift a brand-new wave of associated
merchandise
and apparel...

For
many it is in the 3D realm that Cosgrove Hall truly excel, and it's the
timeless enchantment of 'The Wind In The Willows'
which steals that particular
crown for brilliance. This is the definitive
telling of Kenneth Grahame's oft-told
tale. The woodland folk were beautifully designed
and modelled by Brian
Cosgrove and Bridget Appleby, who produced so
many classic characters
during the company's 'golden years'. Each ball
and socket model cost a cool
£5,000 to make - no surprise when you se the
finished films. Those 'Willows'
characters were exquisitely animated down to
every last twitching whisker.
The budget was pushed up by a microscopic attention
to background details,
with each set seemingly planted with individual
flora and miniaturized implements,
items and object d'art. The woodland world was
complimented by a haunting,
melancholic theme tune and spot-on casting for
the voices. The original film
went on to win a BAFTA, and the subsequent series
and second film,
'Oh, Mr Toad!' collected another hearty helping
of awards and prizes from
around the globe...

Cosgrove
Hall Filmshttp://www.chf.co.uk
The official site. Very bright and
quick loading with bites of info on their
entire CV, plus regular bulletins
of company news and more...

Cosgrove
Hall Digitalhttp://www.chd.uk.com
Cosgrove Hall have a digitial facility,
and this 'flash' site details the people
behind it and the facilities on offer,
as well as some handy info on recent work...